Language is not only a means for communicating with others.
It also constitutes the most powerful implement for developing
personality, both individual and collective. Every social differentiation gives rise to special forms of speech which then emphasize
and enhance the social diversity. The linguists have found that
almost every village and region, every trade and profession, every
corporation and association and social class have their peculiarities of speech which are often regarded as a badge of that special
community.1 In primitive society sometimes different vocabularies are prescribed for men and women, the old and the young.
There are many examples of the use of a special language for
sacral purposes, for speaking to God, as Latin is still employed in
the Catholic Church and Hebrew in the synagogues. In former
times different languages, or dialects, were often used by the same
persons for different forms of literature, either according to the
social station of the readers or according to tradition.2

2. NATIONALITY AND LANGUAGE IN ANTIQUITY AND THE
MIDDLE AGES

In our time, the national community has assumed paramount
power, and all its local and social rivals have lost in prestige and
influence. The national language has become one of the idols
of a new religion. All nations regard it as a symbol of their
independence and honour, as the supreme expression of their personality, and they esteem its exclusive domination within their
national territory more highly than obvious spiritual and material
advantages. Peoples, of course, have always clung to their
language and were often inclined to look down on the foreigner,
whose speech seemed to them barbarous.3 Yet in ancient times
there seem to have been no parallels for our idolization of the
national language and intolerance towards other languages. In
former ages rulers and peoples tolerated different tongues in their
territory, or even adopted a foreign one, though they were not

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